The Nine Corporations
The Nine Corporations: node under docs/brain/knowledge/universe.
The Families own the Nine corporate pillars. A House is a Family organisation, not a separate tier of government. The corporations cooper
The Families own the Nine corporate pillars. A House is a Family organisation, not a separate tier of government. The corporations cooperate when the system itself is threatened and feud everywhere else, usually through contracts, courts, proxies, and deniable violence.
These are public identities and broad areas of control. Individual characters know more or less according to their system, employer, lifepath, and Kadiss access.
Asset Realisation
Asset Realisation owns the LaGrange Cores and therefore the principal long-range travel choke point. Its corporate doctrine treats people, debts, technology, and worlds as assets to be measured and realised. It is the apex of the Nine, but its control is not perfect: unlicensed Cores, smugglers, local routes, and broken records exist.
Argus
Argus operates the commercial face of information, media, and much of the content carried over Kadiss. It shapes what connected people see and remember. It does not own the Cores, and its reach weakens with the grid.
Meridian Exchange
Meridian dominates finance, underwriting, trade ledgers, and access to major markets. It can make movement and commerce expensive or impossible without claiming political office. Rek is accepted currency; the public setting does not settle who ultimately mints or guarantees it.
Numen
Numen certifies, audits, and restrains artificial cognitive systems. Narrow machine intelligence is common; general intelligence is feared and leashed. Numen's seal makes a system legal, and its intervention can end that status.
Surikov Dynamics
Surikov supplies weapons, vehicles, security equipment, and private military forces. Its products arm the Legion, Houses, PMCs, and clients across the Rim, often on different sides of the same conflict.
Helix
Helix controls engineered-human gene-craft, lineage templates, and much of the augmentation economy. Its work made bodies into infrastructure and caste into biology.
Helios Foundry
Helios supplies energy systems, heavy industry, and the shells used to build LaGrange Cores. It forges critical hardware; Asset Realisation owns and controls the completed Cores.
Drift Logistics
Drift moves freight and dominates licensed salvage. Its crews, manifests, and depots connect worlds that official institutions cannot serve directly, while independent salvagers contest every claim.
Lao Agriculture
Lao controls food, air, vats, seed, and biological supply chains that keep dense Core populations alive. A delayed Lao shipment can become a political crisis before any soldier fires.